Its an interesting argument, but you may have forgotten the upgrade revenue stream. They are getting around $120 a year for dot upgrades of OSX. Could they carry on doing that in direct competition with Windows?
Its generally accepted that the profits are on the hardware, but if you think about the upgrade revenue stream, which is 100% margin, not at all sure that is really true.
"Plug and play, extreme integration of hard and software, everything supported that's supposed to be inside your computer so that the hardware part of the story is largely irrelevant."
People keep issuing this propaganda, as we have to keep refuting it. Its a variant on the 'big lie' from political discourse. It is not true.
There is no more integration between OSX and the hardware on a Mac, than there is between XP and the hardware on a Dell. Both OSs communicate with their hardware via drivers, and neither set of drivers is particularly better or different. The hardware indeed is pretty much the same in the Mactel era - main board, disk, memory, processor, opticals, graphics. In fact, when you run Linux on a PPC Mac, the OS is just as integrated with the hardware as when you run OSX on it.
Having fewer drivers for less hardware is not integration with anything. It is just having less drivers.
"I for one will have a hard time stopping myself from slapping people I see running OS X on generic PC hardware" - because you think it immoral.
Well, the problem is, in the EC I believe that it is not lawful to impose an agreement which restricts you from installing one legally bought copy of OSX (or anything else) on one computer of your choice. The restriction to Apple labelled equipment is not simply unenforceable, it is actually unlawful to try to sign up the consumer to such a contract, and in the UK, to represent to him/her that such a contract does restrict their rights is a criminal offense.
So do explain to us: why exactly are you going to be wandering around London or Bristol, slapping people who are doing no more than obeying the law of their country, and asserting their democratically guaranteed rights against a company which may actually be criminal in representing to them that they have waived rights which they cannot waive? Enquiring minds would like to know. Are there any other odd religious preferences of yours that you will go around trying to enforce, in violation of people's legal rights?
This is what the relevant Ministry actually says: "Consumers cannot have their legal rights removed in sale of goods contracts. Furthermore, it can be an offence to mislead consumers about their legal rights. To do so could result in a criminal prosecution. For example, notices such as "We do not give refunds" are misleading and cannot be used. Enforcement is undertaken by local Trading Standards Departments."
So you'll go down for assault, in the cause of defending the criminal. Great stuff! Another Apple fanatic terminally out of touch with reality!
The question is, did you buy or license the OS ?
Yes, this is the question, but in one important respect it doesn't matter. Part of the consumer protection legislation controls the kind of contracts you may make. So, if it were ruled to be a license as distinct from a sale, then some of those conditions would fall by the wayside, but the general protection against suppliers making unfair contracts would remain.
An unfair term in a contract covered by the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations (UTCCRs) is not binding on you". Whether it is in a sale or a lease contract, makes no difference.
Yes, this is the question. Consider the following. You can depreciate your 'purchase' of the software for tax purposes, or expense it. The vendor does not get to depreciate or write off any sold copies, and is taxed on the revenues. Your payment obligations are totally discharged by the transaction - there are no obligatory ongoing charges or periodic payments. Upgrades are an independent and separate transaction. The seller retains no asset in the software supplied - that is, the number of copies 'licensed' does not appear anywhere on their books or their tax returns as an asset.
It is going to be pretty hard to persuade a court that this was not a sale. Find some way, except in the eula, in which it differs from buying a book. Or a power tool. Or indeed a PC. Just calling something a license doesn't make it so. Unless anyone knows of a case? The case I'm aware of, in the film industry, went rather the other way, where people asserted they had 'only' a license, and used this to try to shelter income from tax, and failed.
The UK consumer protection legislation by the way is just local legislation bringing into force general EC Directives and Regulations. The situation is going to be pretty similar all over the EC. A lot of ground nowadays....
Well its interesting, because on well known Mac advocacy sites, people spend an awful lot of time asserting and trying to prove that there is no 'Apple Tax'. And this argument only makes sense if the premium is in fact very large, and one that most Apple buyers are aware of and would avoid if they could. So it is saying something very fundamental, and not positive, about perceptions of value.
"Apple can't compete against Dell's $299 specials for desktops and $499 specials for laptops (after rebates, of course)."
Maybe not, but the question is, why would this destroy the hardware business instead of just enlarging the market? Why would the same Apple customers who now are buying premium hardware not simply carry on doing so? And more people who are now not Apple customers would in future buy other, non-premium hardware.
I am still not seeing it has any chance of destroying the hardware business. Unless the Mac hardware is really terrible in terms of price/performance/value, of course.
"An unfair term in a contract covered by the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations (UTCCRs) is not binding on you.
Test of fairness A term is unfair if: * contrary to the requirement of good faith it causes a significant imbalance inthe parties' rights and obligations under the contract, to the detriment of consumers."
"Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977
"Consumer Sale of Goods Contracts
"Consumers cannot have their legal rights removed in sale of goods contracts. Furthermore, it can be an offence to mislead consumers about their legal rights. To do so could result in a criminal prosecution. For example, notices such as "We do not give refunds" are misleading and cannot be used. Enforcement is undertaken by local Trading Standards Departments."
These quotes are from Department of Trade and Industry Guidelines.
It must be very doubtful that a EULA which forbids you to do things with the product after you have bought it, that you can perfectly well do, and which you have some reasonable reason to want to do, can be lawful in the UK or the EC. In fact, putting clauses in a Eula which mislead the consumer about his rights under the law in this regard appears, from the above, to be criminal.
See, I just don't think its true that the hardware business would be destroyed, and cannot see what evidence there is for it.
Often Mac advocates want to have it both ways, say that Macs are no more expensive AND say that selling the OS separately would destroy the hardware business and with it the company. I think the reality is, they are more expensive, particularly at the high end, but not so much more expensive that there would be mass flight or substitution. Apple buyers are prepared to pay a premium to get something certified by Apple to work well.
In fact, I don't think there is much evidence for a great suppressed demand for OSX on non-Apple labelled hardware. Its something people have always assumed was out there - and back in the days of Classic and Win 3.1, there probably was such a demand, but now, probably not. Obviously there would be incremental sales, as for unbundled Windows, and they would be useful because they would have 100% margin, but they wouldn't affect the main business.
All in all, its very hard to understand the strategy, other than that its some kind of cultural obsession in Cupertino.
"They wrote OS X. They get to decide how to sell it. If you don't like the conditions, don't buy it."
Question: do you think the same applies to MS Office? They wrote it, they get to decide whether you run it under Wine or not. If you don't like the conditions, don't buy it? Or to Windows. They charge OEMs for all computers sold regardless of whether they have Windows installed. You are an OEM. They get to decide how to sell it...
Fact is, companies cannot set any conditions they like, because there is in most Western jurisdictions both competition law restraints, and consumer protection restraints.
This is not an argument about whether they should sell OS X or not, its just an argument about whether they have the legal right to impose these kinds of restrictions on use, post sale. Don't believe so.
People keep explaining this, and the Apple folks keep refusing to listen. But here goes one more time. The clause "You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer" is, I believe, unlawful under EC competition and consumer protection law. I've never heard this seriously disputed. It does two things: it violates the prohibition on anti competitive linked sales, and it violates consumer protection legislation. If you want to see for yourself, look up the UK sales of goods acts.
Now, ask yourself, what is the legal and moral position of a company which is attempting to lead purchasers of its products to believe they have entered into an agreement which is unlawful in the jurisdiction of sale?
If this is wrong, please do cite a few EC cases or precedents showing it is. But no-one ever has, yet.
Yes this is right. The fragmentary evidence there is available to non-insiders suggests that Apple is selling in spite of OSX, not because of it, and that many more people would buy the hardware if they could get it with the OS they prefer. The opportunity is not in OSX, it may be in designer branded hardware.
As to the 'rabid-loyal' - they are loyal to the company no matter what it does, so all Apple needs to do is manage communications with them, and they'll be fine. Also in this scenario, Apple actually wants developers to stop producing OSX software, otherwise they will have no way of killing it.
Everyone gets so emotional about this. It is simply irrelevant what you all feel or want. The question is, could it make business sense?
Maybe. It is clear that an awful lot of people want to run Windows on their Mac designer hardware. You may not want to, you may think its a horrible idea, but they have dollars too, and they want to.
So, find a way to sell it to them. Get a good margin on it of course. Might be a way of growing the hardware business.
It might also be a better business than the other obvious one, selling the OS separately. You would have big support problems with that.
The easiest way might be to cut your hardware business loose and let it package whatever it wants with its hardware. It probably would package Windows, as well as X. Then you could turn your software division loose, and pretty soon you would have iLife for Windows. Why not if it makes money?
The thing to remember is Filemaker. Went to Windows, and never looked back. Its the volume that counts.
But you have to stop being so emotional and so personal about it, to think clearly about it.
The Apple fans have two sometimes contradictory motives. The first is to keep the experience as closed as possible. This keeps it distinctive. It is important to them that you should not be able to run X on non-Apple hardware, or play iTunes music on non-Apple players. This makes it more special to them.
The second motive is that Apple should do well. If this means it monopolizes a market, that's fine. If this means it locks in customers in ways which, if MS did it, they would rage against, well, this is Apple, its different, of course it should be allowed.
The interesting part occurs when the two motivations conflict. The move to Intel was a case in point. It was necessary for the company's future, but it made the product less distinctive. And it caused great unhappiness to quite a lot of them.
In this case however the two coincide. Monopoly is good for Apple shareholders, because it keeps up margins, and it is also good for Mac fans in search of that closed world. This is how the world of personal computing would be, if they had their way. Apple would dominate, and would benevolently tell you what you could and couldn't do with your computer. So you can expect a continuing chorus of abuse at anyone who argues, in court or elsewhere, that the on-line music market should be opened up.
Just as a chorus of abuse is directed at anyone who wants to either run X on non-Apple hardware, or run some other OS on Apple hardware.
Your last point is spot on though: don't like this suit, stop complaining about MS tactics. Same difference.
I have no objection to paying for things jointly that we do not all use equally. Health, education, justice, lots of other things fall in this category. They are paid for out of progressive taxation. I have no problem with it.
What I object to is stopping people from watching any television, if they do not subscribe to a State television broadcaster they do not want to watch.
Fund it out of general taxation, if you can get the law passed. Or make it voluntary to fund it. But don't make it compulsory to subscribe to the BBC as a condition of being legally allowed to watch any TV. Don't oblige me to subscribe to the Telegraph, in order to be allowed to buy or even read the Guardian.
Don't make the poor pay for the pleasures of the middle classes.
Don't tell me that something is better TV because you personally like it better. Its not better or worse. You just like it, others don't.
Respect human rights. One of them is free access to information. What the UK is doing in TV has nothing to do with quality. It is simple abuse of the human rights of the poorer sections of the community. It is wrong.
Speaking as one who would subscribe to the BBC, if it were subscription TV. But who would not want anyone at all ever to be compelled to. Still less sent to jail for the crime of being poor and still wanting to have TV for their children to watch.
As to no other model working, there are many which work better. Look for instance at Holland. Usually in defending the indefensible in British institutions, which are usually said to be the envy of the world, two arguments are made. One is that it is better than the US model, when the real alternative is 30 miles east of us on the Continent, and which we pretend doesn't exist. The second is the appeal to a supposedly better quality, which in this case, just one evening spent in front of the BBC would disprove.
"current licence fee setup does produce superb results..."
Yes, this is the standard argument. But unfortunately, its irrelevant. It just amounts to arguing that because I like some programs this system produces, we should make everyone subscribe to the State channel which produces them, so I can get them, under the same terms as I do now, forever.
Imagine the same argument about the State Magazine. Why are all those guys inspecting our passes as we leave newsagents, to make sure that if we have just bought the New York Review, we have the right to do so, having proof of subscription to State Britain? Or even leave with the free local rag, you would not even have the right to read that! Its very simple, Freddy here likes a few of the articles and the columnists in State Britain, and he is prepared to have you all inspected and made to subscribe to it in order that they should be there for him. And if a few people have to go without mags altogether because they can't afford State Britain, well, fine, what does he care?
Why, you say, doesn't Freddy just subscribe himself to what he wants, pay for articles by these guys, and leave the rest of us the hell alone? Why do we have to go around jailing single mothers so Freddy can get what he wants exactly how he wants it?
No answer. Because there is no answer. However much people may like some BBC programs, there is no reason to curtail the human rights of the whole country to let them have them in precisely the way they do now. Straighten out the human rights issue, then let Freddy and Co find a way to get their programs. First things first, and if Freddy can't find a way to get them, tough.
It is very important to understand exactly how this works in the UK.
There is a state broadcaster, the BBC, who runs TV and Radio stations. There is a fee charged for watching any TV, and the resulting revenues are paid to the state broadcaster. It is a criminal offence to watch TV and not pay the fee.
There are also numerous other broadcasters, probably 50-100. Some are subscription based, others are advertising funded. None get any revenue from the license fee.
However, you cannot legally watch any of these, without paying for the state broadcaster, whether you want to watch it or not.
To see what is really going on, you have to look at the newspaper business. The analogy would be that the State publishes a newspaper. It would be illegal to read any newspaper, without having a subscription to it. Officials would go around newsagents, stop people buying The Times, and demand to see proof that the buyer had subsribed to the Government paper.
This is why a number of people in the UK think that the license fee in its present form is an abuse of human rights, and probably unlawful under the European Human Rights legislation. It restricts free access to information.
It is also positively wicked in its application. The people who end up being caught and going to jail for watching TV without paying the BBC are the poor and the single mothers. They are people who, if given a choice, would take the $200 a year and spend it on food or clothes, and just watch the free channels. It is a completely regressive form of taxation, as well as restricting access to information and entertainment.
The result on the BBC is equally unfortunate. It has turned into a powerful lobby group whose aim is to extract more and more money from the license fee, and use it to enter more and more areas of the media. We thus have the amazing situation in which the State broadcaster is the leading magazine publisher in the UK.
This is why the eminent theatre director Jonathan Miller refused to pay his fee, was taken to court, and announced his intention of appealing to the Strasbourg court on human rights grounds.
What is wrong about the license fee is, it is wrong to make people subscribe to the State channel as a condition of being able to watch TV. Just as it would be wrong to make them subscribe to the State newspaper as a condition of reading the press, or to buy music by the State bands, as a condition of being allowed to buy CDs. It has nothing to do with the quality of the BBC. It is about compulsion, and restriction.
I would personally subscribe, given the option. But I would defend vigorously your right to watch TV without subscribing, and if that leads to a smaller BBC, that would be better both for the country, and for the BBC.
You cannot run anything but OSX on a MacIntel. You cannot, I am sorry, but you just can't. Will people stop saying you can? Or show me how to boot either Windows or Linux on a MacIntel.
Darwin is not OSX. Darwin doesn't matter, no-one runs Darwin on their Apple hardware. OSX is not open source. Will people please stop repeating this over and over again?
Windows is not open source. The point is that Windows hardware is open. The point is that the combination of OSX and Apple hardware are linked, and you cannot run either with anything else. That is what makes a Windows PC more open than a Mac PC. This is a fact.
As to iPods and iTunes, we shall see. Songbird is not there yet, but it will be, and when it does, lets hope Apple's share of the online music market falls to a reasonable 10-20%. Then I and music lovers everywhere will feel a lot more comfortable. In fact, I would really like their share of online music to be about the same as their share of the PC market.
"Why do you want to have a range of mediocre choices when you can have one good system?"
Its what Stalin asked. One answer was given by the Gulag Archipelago. But here is another. Because freedom to choose is a value in itself. I like it for countries and governments, for religions, and for operating systems. Buy OSX and you have to run it on Apple hardware. Buy the new Intel hardware and the only thing it will run is OSX.
People should be able to buy this if they want. But I am speaking about what is good for countries and for the public. I do not think it would be good for us if this business model were to acquire any greater market share than (say) 5%, and I think the public sector should discourage it. It is the same as ODF. Closed source, software and hardware locked to each other, is a bad thing as a business model. You should personally be able to buy it. As a matter of public policy, our public institutions should make sure they do not endorse it.
What is good for America is not always good for GM, and vice versa, and what is good for Apple and its shareholders is not always good for us as computer users or as citizens.
The reason this is bad news for education in Europe, particularly Switzerland and France, is that Apple is a lock in company. Buy the hardware and you are stuck. You can't move the OS to another hardware vendor, and with the MacIntels, you can't boot any other OS on the hardware. This is not something any sane person would want for public sector institutions in his country. MS is bad enough. But at least you can run the hardware of your choice and get it wherever you want.
Its a moral issue, and its a political issue, its about personal freedom, and its the exact same debate as is happening in Massachusets, but on a different subject. Some companies, and Apple is one, want to lock their customers in. The customers should not go for it.
What Apple wants is, you buy the hardware, it only runs OSX. Then you buy an iPod, it will only play stuff bought at the Mac store. Then you can only buy at the Mac store if you do it using some Mac application....
Its gross. Its not what Apple, the Apple of Hypercard and the early days, was about. But its what they are about now, and the Swiss need to wake up and realise that MS + Acer or Dell or whoever may not be the greatest, but its a lot better than this.
The teacher appears from the link to have been arrested on suspicion of possessing material unlawful under the Child Protection Act. He may or may not also be charged with making. I hadn't heard of the case before and am not sure what it proves, one way or the other.
The orginal poster, to whom I replied, seemed to be saying that UK law treated the act of burning to CD the same as the act of making, for instance, taking photographs. The implication was that it was inappropriate.
My reply was that this isn't quite right. UK law doesn't treat burning a CD as making, but it makes a quite different distinction, between material which it is unlawful to publish, and material which it is unlawful to own. For the second kind of material, it also makes possession a strict liability offense. It does also distinguish between making and owning in the case of the second sort of material. Both are unlawful, and they are not, contrary to what was said, treated as the same thing.
It was later argued in the thread that practice would erode the distinction. That, for instance, to write a pdf of Lady Chatterly to one's hard drive, in the days when that book was unlawful to publish, would have counted as making. That is not true. Since it is publication, and not making, that is unlawful, for materials prohibited under either the Obscene Publications or the Race Relations Acts, receiving LC, and writing it to disk, would not be unlawful, and would not be an offence. Similarly, the act of writing LC would not be an offence. It would be an offence to publish it, and that is why Penguin books could be prosecuted (unsuccessfully).
Is the UK law appropriate and can these distinctions be defended? I think so. Most people living in the UK probably would agree that there is a difference of kind between the materials prohibited under the Child Protection Acts, and the others, and that it is appropriate for posssession of them to be unlawful in the one case but not the other. I agree. I'm somewhat less easy about strict liability, in this and other areas of law, but do see why it is needed.
If the teacher were to have been arrested for mere possession of material which is unlawful to publish under the Obscene Publications Act, but which does not fall under the Child Protection laws, then the other posters in the thread would have been proved right, and my view of the law wrong. The extension from publication to possession would have taken place. In addition, if he were to be prosecuted for having made, when the only qualifying act was to burn to CD, then I would have been proved wrong again. There is not enough detail on the link to settle this one way or the other, but it would be, from what I know of the law, very surprising and a very considerable change, and I don't find anything in the link to support either claim.
The reason I posted was to say what I continue to think, that, contrary to the implication of some posters, the UK law is deserving of our considerable respect, as a responsible effort to make the right distinctions and treat different things differently, in a very difficult and unpleasant area.
Gates had an insight which was denied to Jobs. His insight was that to realise the potential of his company, he needed at least one thing to be open. Since the software was not going to be open, becuase he was going to charge for that by the seat, that meant that the hardware had to be open. That was the one thing he could not supply the world with. He needed others to help do that, and he didn't need to manage them as they did it. To see that, took genius of a different order.
Jobs on the other hand was going to keep his company whatever size it ended up being, as long as he could keep both the hardware and the software closed. However much he could make, that's how many were to be for sale. It turned out to be less than 5% of the market.
One was a born religious leader who happened to end up in business and ran it like a religion. The other was a born businessman who ended up in business and ran it like a business.
Gates is in the tradition of Carnegie, right down to his philanthropy. Jobs is in the tradition of....?
Slashdot Mirror
Its an interesting argument, but you may have forgotten the upgrade revenue stream. They are getting around $120 a year for dot upgrades of OSX. Could they carry on doing that in direct competition with Windows?
Its generally accepted that the profits are on the hardware, but if you think about the upgrade revenue stream, which is 100% margin, not at all sure that is really true.
"Plug and play, extreme integration of hard and software, everything supported that's supposed to be inside your computer so that the hardware part of the story is largely irrelevant."
People keep issuing this propaganda, as we have to keep refuting it. Its a variant on the 'big lie' from political discourse. It is not true.
There is no more integration between OSX and the hardware on a Mac, than there is between XP and the hardware on a Dell. Both OSs communicate with their hardware via drivers, and neither set of drivers is particularly better or different. The hardware indeed is pretty much the same in the Mactel era - main board, disk, memory, processor, opticals, graphics. In fact, when you run Linux on a PPC Mac, the OS is just as integrated with the hardware as when you run OSX on it.
Having fewer drivers for less hardware is not integration with anything. It is just having less drivers.
"I for one will have a hard time stopping myself from slapping people I see running OS X on generic PC hardware" - because you think it immoral.
Well, the problem is, in the EC I believe that it is not lawful to impose an agreement which restricts you from installing one legally bought copy of OSX (or anything else) on one computer of your choice. The restriction to Apple labelled equipment is not simply unenforceable, it is actually unlawful to try to sign up the consumer to such a contract, and in the UK, to represent to him/her that such a contract does restrict their rights is a criminal offense.
So do explain to us: why exactly are you going to be wandering around London or Bristol, slapping people who are doing no more than obeying the law of their country, and asserting their democratically guaranteed rights against a company which may actually be criminal in representing to them that they have waived rights which they cannot waive? Enquiring minds would like to know. Are there any other odd religious preferences of yours that you will go around trying to enforce, in violation of people's legal rights?
This is what the relevant Ministry actually says: "Consumers cannot have their legal rights removed in sale of goods contracts. Furthermore, it can be an offence to mislead consumers about their legal rights. To do so could result in a criminal prosecution. For example, notices such as "We do not give refunds" are misleading and cannot be used. Enforcement is undertaken by local Trading Standards Departments."
So you'll go down for assault, in the cause of defending the criminal. Great stuff! Another Apple fanatic terminally out of touch with reality!
The question is, did you buy or license the OS ? Yes, this is the question, but in one important respect it doesn't matter. Part of the consumer protection legislation controls the kind of contracts you may make. So, if it were ruled to be a license as distinct from a sale, then some of those conditions would fall by the wayside, but the general protection against suppliers making unfair contracts would remain. An unfair term in a contract covered by the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations (UTCCRs) is not binding on you". Whether it is in a sale or a lease contract, makes no difference.
"The question is, did you buy or license the OS"
Yes, this is the question. Consider the following. You can depreciate your 'purchase' of the software for tax purposes, or expense it. The vendor does not get to depreciate or write off any sold copies, and is taxed on the revenues. Your payment obligations are totally discharged by the transaction - there are no obligatory ongoing charges or periodic payments. Upgrades are an independent and separate transaction. The seller retains no asset in the software supplied - that is, the number of copies 'licensed' does not appear anywhere on their books or their tax returns as an asset.
It is going to be pretty hard to persuade a court that this was not a sale. Find some way, except in the eula, in which it differs from buying a book. Or a power tool. Or indeed a PC. Just calling something a license doesn't make it so. Unless anyone knows of a case? The case I'm aware of, in the film industry, went rather the other way, where people asserted they had 'only' a license, and used this to try to shelter income from tax, and failed.
The UK consumer protection legislation by the way is just local legislation bringing into force general EC Directives and Regulations. The situation is going to be pretty similar all over the EC. A lot of ground nowadays....
Well its interesting, because on well known Mac advocacy sites, people spend an awful lot of time asserting and trying to prove that there is no 'Apple Tax'. And this argument only makes sense if the premium is in fact very large, and one that most Apple buyers are aware of and would avoid if they could. So it is saying something very fundamental, and not positive, about perceptions of value.
"Apple can't compete against Dell's $299 specials for desktops and $499 specials for laptops (after rebates, of course)."
Maybe not, but the question is, why would this destroy the hardware business instead of just enlarging the market? Why would the same Apple customers who now are buying premium hardware not simply carry on doing so? And more people who are now not Apple customers would in future buy other, non-premium hardware.
I am still not seeing it has any chance of destroying the hardware business. Unless the Mac hardware is really terrible in terms of price/performance/value, of course.
"An unfair term in a contract covered by the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations (UTCCRs) is not binding on you.
Test of fairness A term is unfair if: * contrary to the requirement of good faith it causes a significant imbalance inthe parties' rights and obligations under the contract, to the detriment of consumers."
"Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977
"Consumer Sale of Goods Contracts
"Consumers cannot have their legal rights removed in sale of goods contracts. Furthermore, it can be an offence to mislead consumers about their legal rights. To do so could result in a criminal prosecution. For example, notices such as "We do not give refunds" are misleading and cannot be used. Enforcement is undertaken by local Trading Standards Departments."
These quotes are from Department of Trade and Industry Guidelines.
It must be very doubtful that a EULA which forbids you to do things with the product after you have bought it, that you can perfectly well do, and which you have some reasonable reason to want to do, can be lawful in the UK or the EC. In fact, putting clauses in a Eula which mislead the consumer about his rights under the law in this regard appears, from the above, to be criminal.
See, I just don't think its true that the hardware business would be destroyed, and cannot see what evidence there is for it.
Often Mac advocates want to have it both ways, say that Macs are no more expensive AND say that selling the OS separately would destroy the hardware business and with it the company. I think the reality is, they are more expensive, particularly at the high end, but not so much more expensive that there would be mass flight or substitution. Apple buyers are prepared to pay a premium to get something certified by Apple to work well.
In fact, I don't think there is much evidence for a great suppressed demand for OSX on non-Apple labelled hardware. Its something people have always assumed was out there - and back in the days of Classic and Win 3.1, there probably was such a demand, but now, probably not. Obviously there would be incremental sales, as for unbundled Windows, and they would be useful because they would have 100% margin, but they wouldn't affect the main business.
All in all, its very hard to understand the strategy, other than that its some kind of cultural obsession in Cupertino.
"They wrote OS X. They get to decide how to sell it. If you don't like the conditions, don't buy it."
Question: do you think the same applies to MS Office? They wrote it, they get to decide whether you run it under Wine or not. If you don't like the conditions, don't buy it? Or to Windows. They charge OEMs for all computers sold regardless of whether they have Windows installed. You are an OEM. They get to decide how to sell it...
Fact is, companies cannot set any conditions they like, because there is in most Western jurisdictions both competition law restraints, and consumer protection restraints.
This is not an argument about whether they should sell OS X or not, its just an argument about whether they have the legal right to impose these kinds of restrictions on use, post sale. Don't believe so.
People keep explaining this, and the Apple folks keep refusing to listen. But here goes one more time. The clause "You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer" is, I believe, unlawful under EC competition and consumer protection law. I've never heard this seriously disputed. It does two things: it violates the prohibition on anti competitive linked sales, and it violates consumer protection legislation. If you want to see for yourself, look up the UK sales of goods acts.
Now, ask yourself, what is the legal and moral position of a company which is attempting to lead purchasers of its products to believe they have entered into an agreement which is unlawful in the jurisdiction of sale?
If this is wrong, please do cite a few EC cases or precedents showing it is. But no-one ever has, yet.
So the argument is, Macs are about twice as expensive as comparable non-Mac systems, and the difference is Apple profits? Is that the argument?
Tell us again, why exactly would hardware sales collapse?
Yes this is right. The fragmentary evidence there is available to non-insiders suggests that Apple is selling in spite of OSX, not because of it, and that many more people would buy the hardware if they could get it with the OS they prefer. The opportunity is not in OSX, it may be in designer branded hardware.
As to the 'rabid-loyal' - they are loyal to the company no matter what it does, so all Apple needs to do is manage communications with them, and they'll be fine. Also in this scenario, Apple actually wants developers to stop producing OSX software, otherwise they will have no way of killing it.
Everyone gets so emotional about this. It is simply irrelevant what you all feel or want. The question is, could it make business sense?
Maybe. It is clear that an awful lot of people want to run Windows on their Mac designer hardware. You may not want to, you may think its a horrible idea, but they have dollars too, and they want to.
So, find a way to sell it to them. Get a good margin on it of course. Might be a way of growing the hardware business.
It might also be a better business than the other obvious one, selling the OS separately. You would have big support problems with that.
The easiest way might be to cut your hardware business loose and let it package whatever it wants with its hardware. It probably would package Windows, as well as X. Then you could turn your software division loose, and pretty soon you would have iLife for Windows. Why not if it makes money?
The thing to remember is Filemaker. Went to Windows, and never looked back. Its the volume that counts.
But you have to stop being so emotional and so personal about it, to think clearly about it.
The Apple fans have two sometimes contradictory motives. The first is to keep the experience as closed as possible. This keeps it distinctive. It is important to them that you should not be able to run X on non-Apple hardware, or play iTunes music on non-Apple players. This makes it more special to them.
The second motive is that Apple should do well. If this means it monopolizes a market, that's fine. If this means it locks in customers in ways which, if MS did it, they would rage against, well, this is Apple, its different, of course it should be allowed.
The interesting part occurs when the two motivations conflict. The move to Intel was a case in point. It was necessary for the company's future, but it made the product less distinctive. And it caused great unhappiness to quite a lot of them.
In this case however the two coincide. Monopoly is good for Apple shareholders, because it keeps up margins, and it is also good for Mac fans in search of that closed world. This is how the world of personal computing would be, if they had their way. Apple would dominate, and would benevolently tell you what you could and couldn't do with your computer. So you can expect a continuing chorus of abuse at anyone who argues, in court or elsewhere, that the on-line music market should be opened up.
Just as a chorus of abuse is directed at anyone who wants to either run X on non-Apple hardware, or run some other OS on Apple hardware.
Your last point is spot on though: don't like this suit, stop complaining about MS tactics. Same difference.
I have no objection to paying for things jointly that we do not all use equally. Health, education, justice, lots of other things fall in this category. They are paid for out of progressive taxation. I have no problem with it.
What I object to is stopping people from watching any television, if they do not subscribe to a State television broadcaster they do not want to watch.
Fund it out of general taxation, if you can get the law passed. Or make it voluntary to fund it. But don't make it compulsory to subscribe to the BBC as a condition of being legally allowed to watch any TV. Don't oblige me to subscribe to the Telegraph, in order to be allowed to buy or even read the Guardian.
Don't make the poor pay for the pleasures of the middle classes.
Don't tell me that something is better TV because you personally like it better. Its not better or worse. You just like it, others don't.
Respect human rights. One of them is free access to information. What the UK is doing in TV has nothing to do with quality. It is simple abuse of the human rights of the poorer sections of the community. It is wrong.
Speaking as one who would subscribe to the BBC, if it were subscription TV. But who would not want anyone at all ever to be compelled to. Still less sent to jail for the crime of being poor and still wanting to have TV for their children to watch.
As to no other model working, there are many which work better. Look for instance at Holland. Usually in defending the indefensible in British institutions, which are usually said to be the envy of the world, two arguments are made. One is that it is better than the US model, when the real alternative is 30 miles east of us on the Continent, and which we pretend doesn't exist. The second is the appeal to a supposedly better quality, which in this case, just one evening spent in front of the BBC would disprove.
"current licence fee setup does produce superb results..."
Yes, this is the standard argument. But unfortunately, its irrelevant. It just amounts to arguing that because I like some programs this system produces, we should make everyone subscribe to the State channel which produces them, so I can get them, under the same terms as I do now, forever.
Imagine the same argument about the State Magazine. Why are all those guys inspecting our passes as we leave newsagents, to make sure that if we have just bought the New York Review, we have the right to do so, having proof of subscription to State Britain? Or even leave with the free local rag, you would not even have the right to read that! Its very simple, Freddy here likes a few of the articles and the columnists in State Britain, and he is prepared to have you all inspected and made to subscribe to it in order that they should be there for him. And if a few people have to go without mags altogether because they can't afford State Britain, well, fine, what does he care?
Why, you say, doesn't Freddy just subscribe himself to what he wants, pay for articles by these guys, and leave the rest of us the hell alone? Why do we have to go around jailing single mothers so Freddy can get what he wants exactly how he wants it?
No answer. Because there is no answer. However much people may like some BBC programs, there is no reason to curtail the human rights of the whole country to let them have them in precisely the way they do now. Straighten out the human rights issue, then let Freddy and Co find a way to get their programs. First things first, and if Freddy can't find a way to get them, tough.
Yes you do have to pay. If it is capable of receiving TV, and you own it, and its not eg in storage in the attic in a box, then you pay.
It is very important to understand exactly how this works in the UK.
There is a state broadcaster, the BBC, who runs TV and Radio stations. There is a fee charged for watching any TV, and the resulting revenues are paid to the state broadcaster. It is a criminal offence to watch TV and not pay the fee.
There are also numerous other broadcasters, probably 50-100. Some are subscription based, others are advertising funded. None get any revenue from the license fee.
However, you cannot legally watch any of these, without paying for the state broadcaster, whether you want to watch it or not.
To see what is really going on, you have to look at the newspaper business. The analogy would be that the State publishes a newspaper. It would be illegal to read any newspaper, without having a subscription to it. Officials would go around newsagents, stop people buying The Times, and demand to see proof that the buyer had subsribed to the Government paper.
This is why a number of people in the UK think that the license fee in its present form is an abuse of human rights, and probably unlawful under the European Human Rights legislation. It restricts free access to information.
It is also positively wicked in its application. The people who end up being caught and going to jail for watching TV without paying the BBC are the poor and the single mothers. They are people who, if given a choice, would take the $200 a year and spend it on food or clothes, and just watch the free channels. It is a completely regressive form of taxation, as well as restricting access to information and entertainment.
The result on the BBC is equally unfortunate. It has turned into a powerful lobby group whose aim is to extract more and more money from the license fee, and use it to enter more and more areas of the media. We thus have the amazing situation in which the State broadcaster is the leading magazine publisher in the UK.
This is why the eminent theatre director Jonathan Miller refused to pay his fee, was taken to court, and announced his intention of appealing to the Strasbourg court on human rights grounds.
What is wrong about the license fee is, it is wrong to make people subscribe to the State channel as a condition of being able to watch TV. Just as it would be wrong to make them subscribe to the State newspaper as a condition of reading the press, or to buy music by the State bands, as a condition of being allowed to buy CDs. It has nothing to do with the quality of the BBC. It is about compulsion, and restriction.
I would personally subscribe, given the option. But I would defend vigorously your right to watch TV without subscribing, and if that leads to a smaller BBC, that would be better both for the country, and for the BBC.
You cannot run anything but OSX on a MacIntel. You cannot, I am sorry, but you just can't. Will people stop saying you can? Or show me how to boot either Windows or Linux on a MacIntel.
Darwin is not OSX. Darwin doesn't matter, no-one runs Darwin on their Apple hardware. OSX is not open source. Will people please stop repeating this over and over again?
Windows is not open source. The point is that Windows hardware is open. The point is that the combination of OSX and Apple hardware are linked, and you cannot run either with anything else. That is what makes a Windows PC more open than a Mac PC. This is a fact.
As to iPods and iTunes, we shall see. Songbird is not there yet, but it will be, and when it does, lets hope Apple's share of the online music market falls to a reasonable 10-20%. Then I and music lovers everywhere will feel a lot more comfortable. In fact, I would really like their share of online music to be about the same as their share of the PC market.
"Why do you want to have a range of mediocre choices when you can have one good system?"
Its what Stalin asked. One answer was given by the Gulag Archipelago. But here is another. Because freedom to choose is a value in itself. I like it for countries and governments, for religions, and for operating systems. Buy OSX and you have to run it on Apple hardware. Buy the new Intel hardware and the only thing it will run is OSX.
People should be able to buy this if they want. But I am speaking about what is good for countries and for the public. I do not think it would be good for us if this business model were to acquire any greater market share than (say) 5%, and I think the public sector should discourage it. It is the same as ODF. Closed source, software and hardware locked to each other, is a bad thing as a business model. You should personally be able to buy it. As a matter of public policy, our public institutions should make sure they do not endorse it.
What is good for America is not always good for GM, and vice versa, and what is good for Apple and its shareholders is not always good for us as computer users or as citizens.
The reason this is bad news for education in Europe, particularly Switzerland and France, is that Apple is a lock in company. Buy the hardware and you are stuck. You can't move the OS to another hardware vendor, and with the MacIntels, you can't boot any other OS on the hardware. This is not something any sane person would want for public sector institutions in his country. MS is bad enough. But at least you can run the hardware of your choice and get it wherever you want.
Its a moral issue, and its a political issue, its about personal freedom, and its the exact same debate as is happening in Massachusets, but on a different subject. Some companies, and Apple is one, want to lock their customers in. The customers should not go for it.
What Apple wants is, you buy the hardware, it only runs OSX. Then you buy an iPod, it will only play stuff bought at the Mac store. Then you can only buy at the Mac store if you do it using some Mac application....
Its gross. Its not what Apple, the Apple of Hypercard and the early days, was about. But its what they are about now, and the Swiss need to wake up and realise that MS + Acer or Dell or whoever may not be the greatest, but its a lot better than this.
The teacher appears from the link to have been arrested on suspicion of possessing material unlawful under the Child Protection Act. He may or may not also be charged with making. I hadn't heard of the case before and am not sure what it proves, one way or the other.
The orginal poster, to whom I replied, seemed to be saying that UK law treated the act of burning to CD the same as the act of making, for instance, taking photographs. The implication was that it was inappropriate.
My reply was that this isn't quite right. UK law doesn't treat burning a CD as making, but it makes a quite different distinction, between material which it is unlawful to publish, and material which it is unlawful to own. For the second kind of material, it also makes possession a strict liability offense. It does also distinguish between making and owning in the case of the second sort of material. Both are unlawful, and they are not, contrary to what was said, treated as the same thing.
It was later argued in the thread that practice would erode the distinction. That, for instance, to write a pdf of Lady Chatterly to one's hard drive, in the days when that book was unlawful to publish, would have counted as making. That is not true. Since it is publication, and not making, that is unlawful, for materials prohibited under either the Obscene Publications or the Race Relations Acts, receiving LC, and writing it to disk, would not be unlawful, and would not be an offence. Similarly, the act of writing LC would not be an offence. It would be an offence to publish it, and that is why Penguin books could be prosecuted (unsuccessfully).
Is the UK law appropriate and can these distinctions be defended? I think so. Most people living in the UK probably would agree that there is a difference of kind between the materials prohibited under the Child Protection Acts, and the others, and that it is appropriate for posssession of them to be unlawful in the one case but not the other. I agree. I'm somewhat less easy about strict liability, in this and other areas of law, but do see why it is needed.
If the teacher were to have been arrested for mere possession of material which is unlawful to publish under the Obscene Publications Act, but which does not fall under the Child Protection laws, then the other posters in the thread would have been proved right, and my view of the law wrong. The extension from publication to possession would have taken place. In addition, if he were to be prosecuted for having made, when the only qualifying act was to burn to CD, then I would have been proved wrong again. There is not enough detail on the link to settle this one way or the other, but it would be, from what I know of the law, very surprising and a very considerable change, and I don't find anything in the link to support either claim.
The reason I posted was to say what I continue to think, that, contrary to the implication of some posters, the UK law is deserving of our considerable respect, as a responsible effort to make the right distinctions and treat different things differently, in a very difficult and unpleasant area.
Gates had an insight which was denied to Jobs. His insight was that to realise the potential of his company, he needed at least one thing to be open. Since the software was not going to be open, becuase he was going to charge for that by the seat, that meant that the hardware had to be open. That was the one thing he could not supply the world with. He needed others to help do that, and he didn't need to manage them as they did it. To see that, took genius of a different order.
Jobs on the other hand was going to keep his company whatever size it ended up being, as long as he could keep both the hardware and the software closed. However much he could make, that's how many were to be for sale. It turned out to be less than 5% of the market.
One was a born religious leader who happened to end up in business and ran it like a religion. The other was a born businessman who ended up in business and ran it like a business.
Gates is in the tradition of Carnegie, right down to his philanthropy. Jobs is in the tradition of....?